Headlines

AP

Fiscal cliff: Obama and Boehner aren’t far apart

Despite all the hot fiscal cliff rhetoric, the differences between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner seem relatively narrow. So why haven’t they shaken hands already? One answer: Both sides need to keep — or get — their own troops behind them. …

Chastened by Obama’s re-election, Boehner has violated a quarter-century of Republican dogma by offering to raise taxes, including boosting income tax rates on earnings exceeding $1 million annually. Eager for a budget deal that would let him move on to other issues, Obama in turn would cut the growth of Social Security benefits, usually off-limits to Democrats. He also would impose tax increases on a broader swath of people than millionaires — those with incomes over $400,000. But that figure, too, is a retreat from what he campaigned on: the $200,000 income ceiling on individuals and $250,000 on couples.

That means both men have angered lawmakers and staunch supporters of their respective parties, just when the need to retain that support is crucial. Neither wants to risk his political capital by embracing a deal his own party rejects.

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

This article is more myth-making by the press. The two were never that close. The numbers being tossed around are meaningless — they were never attached to any particular policies, and scorekeepers haven’t even been able to figure out what would be the timepath of spending under the supposed frameworks.

A telltale signal of the author’s bias is the spin that fixing CPI is somehow a substantial Soc Sec benefit cut. Soc Sec benefits are supposed to be tied to price inflation and it’s already the intent of the law to get CPI as accurate as possible. The CPI reform under discussion would have a spillover effect onto Soc Sec COLAs but it is a far cry from serious Soc Sec reform (it eliminates only about 1/6 of the outyear deficits in the program).

This is all nonsense promulgated by people who want to create the fiction that the POTUS has put serious proposals on the table.

This article is more myth-making by the press. The two were never that close. The numbers being tossed around are meaningless — they were never attached to any particular policies, and scorekeepers haven’t even been able to figure out what would be the timepath of spending under the supposed frameworks.

A telltale signal of the author’s bias is the spin that fixing CPI is somehow a substantial Soc Sec benefit cut. Soc Sec benefits are supposed to be tied to price inflation and it’s already the intent of the law to get CPI as accurate as possible. The CPI reform under discussion would have a spillover effect onto Soc Sec COLAs but it is a far cry from serious Soc Sec reform (it eliminates only about 1/6 of the outyear deficits in the program).

This is all nonsense promulgated by people who want to create the fiction that the POTUS has put serious proposals on the table.

Chuckles3 on December 21, 2012 at 8:43 AM

Ring-a-ding-ding. I said before that baselines matter, and given there’s been a spread of over $5 trillion in new deficits between the options (more than the new deficits from an overly-optimistic scoring of the most-”draconian” option), all the numbers tossed about have been fluff.

To put the SocSec CPI “fix” another way, when the “Trust Funds” run out of money (only a couple years later than otherwise if memory serves), instead of a 25% cut in benefits paid out, there will be a 21% cut.